Cool. Have been toying with the idea to join a workshop with a professional photographer on wildlife photography. Just want to see what kind of insights a pro can offer, and whether or not I need any more tips, or just need to dive into books on wildlife behavior and environments. Will get back on that as soon as it happens .

I'm beat! 4:30-am started an Iron Warrior contest and it was 80-deg F already at 5:30-am. It was 95-deg by the time it was over with at 9-am. 350 pictures there. Then Unit BBQ for lunch at 110-deg and another 250 pictures. Now I have to get them all run through Lightroom to get them posted.

And I think that I'm really happy with my camera equipment - there's hardly anything I could think of that I feel I really NEED; there are just some little "wants" like a lensbaby, a 50mm 1.4 or stuff like that. A newer crop frame DSLR would be nice as well but I'm still waiting for one offering a noticably better image quality than the 500D. Well - I have to admit I had to think of a 100D for a moment. (Or a used 1Ds Mark II or 1D Mark III - those things are pretty cheap to get nowadays!)But in the end... it doesn't really matter - I'm really happy with my stuff.

Was stuck in Heathrow terminal 1 earlier waiting for a delayed flight. Poked around the camera section of one of the shops and surprised to see the X100s for £899. I didn't hang around it too long in case I bought it! Besides, I can't quite square up the thought of spending that much on a fixed lens camera.

The Fuji X range was also on display. Still somewhat tempting, but I do think I will wait for the X-Pro2 before seeing what the overall market is like then.

They also had all the other usual suspects out. Compacts are getting really compact if you don't need much zoom. Even if you do, they're not much bigger. Seeing the OMD whatever its called does bring home how small it is, although maybe it was something about the shop layout as the Canon 650D looked tiny too. No, it wasn't a 100D, couldn't find one. There were even some canon white lenses out (70-200), although I didn't pay particular attention to them.

Guess I am going to need to find a film forum to hang out on. My dad confirmed that he is giving me his Canon film camera and lenses when I get back from Afghanistan. Should be fun. I'm thinking I will probably dedicate it to Black and White. .

Just finished processing my trip pics and with several contracts revolving around pics from this trip Im really starting to get the sense of what they mean by 10% of the work involved being the actual taking of the pics and 90% being everything else it takes to bring it all together for the final projects... Personally I love the photography part but Im already beginning to dislike most of the other apsects

I can appreciate that, I guess its like that for anything. If you need or want to make money from photography, it becomes a job and its not a hobby anymore.I grew up with a mum that always cooked and baked and later in life run a successful Sandwich bar/ Coffee lounge and catering business. I spend many hours working with her and one of her chefs. I could easily have stepped into that trade. But what I learnt from all that was that I love food and cooking, but wouldn`t want to do it for a job. Long hours, hard work, but worst of all its always during the time when everyone has time off that you are at work. I much rather cook when I feel like it and do my normal job, which is pushing buttons operating a power station, think Homer Simpson.

As it is I am doing it tough, just had a quick lunch of venison leg steak on home made sourdough bread. Just finished helping dad breaking down a couple of deer that he got on Friday. One advantage of doing shift work and poor winter weather is that I feel dopey after nightshift so I often spend a couple of hours in the kitchen. Now a bit of a walk/run and then pick up kids from school.

Well it's been a while. Seems I don't have such great memory when it comes to passwords.

I changed my browser a while ago (I can now run Firefox, yay!) and I'd been using an automated login for almost everything, including Cameralabs, and it seems I deleted the old browser too early. First, when I went into Cameralabs.com I noticed I didn't know my password, so I decided to reset it, quite easy. Problem was, this account was linked to an old e-mail I abandoned quite some time ago, and to my surprise, I didn't know the password either.

So yeah, getting into my account was quite impossible, of course until I told a friend about my problem and he asked me if I'd linked my cellphone to my account in case I'd someday forget my password. And it seems I did! So basically I reseted my e-mail password and then my password from this account.